The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

Bl-awww

Allow me to get into February with the proper sentiment.

I don't like February, despite it's valentines and newly appointed Canadian holiday, 'Family Day'. It is the last hour before the bell rings. It is endless corridor with an open door at the end. It is the bottom half of an impossibly long speech. It is cold, it is grey, and it is cruel. February, I'm really not a fan.

I have been 'sick', off and on, since December. I am currently enduring round four of the same bloody virus, one which flirts with leaving, but returns with a vengeance. It is the February of viruses, I suppose, and right now I am suffering the sensation of strangulation from a swollen, razorblade throat. I am sick of sounding like my head is full of bubbles when I speak. It is disgusting, it doesn't sound like girlhood. Instead, I sound like my mother, with a slightly huskier voice and a constant clearing of my throat, and since she and I are still not speaking, I find it odd and mean that I have to hear her voice coming out of my very own mouth.

Everyone around me is in a bad mood, too. There is something about doom and gloom which just seems to breed better in grey light. Like mold in a wet, dark place. I have small breaks in it though, like last night when M. came down to sit next to me as I watched some television, and I was so filled with love for him that it came up and out. I stared at him with what must have been an uncharacteristic, goofy smile, and when he looked at me, I swear his eyes were a more intense shade of blue than they normally are. I love you, I said happily, which I'm sure surprised him as I'm not the kind of girl who says that often. He smiled, took my hand and put his head against mine. I love you, too. Then, I went to get a basket of hot, fluffy laundry to fold and my bad mood came back, along with a new level of sore in my throat. When I went to bed, I was emitting sighs and tongue clicks, and M. came up with a glass of water and an Advil. I was instructed to take it, even though I didn't want it, and so I swallowed, and fell blissfully asleep. I like when he takes care of me.

At the moment, the house is mine. I am in it with three sleepy, purring, full-bellied cats. I can't see them, but I know they're around as the house vibrates with their contentment every so often. They have their spots, their political corners, and none of them breach one another's space. In many ways, they're better than humans. M. has gone off to chaperone an outing with the wee one's J.K class, a bowling expedition of eighteen four-year-olds dressed in pajamas. I don't know why p.j day was the same day as bowling day, but it is. M. has taken his brand new camera with him to capture everything on film, and I was happy to have him go instead of me. I am sick, I am worn and I have been wishing for a house to myself for ages. I can write without listening for the creaks of the floor in his office. I can read without him looking at me with an expression of 'have you looked the job boards today?'. I can drink tea, watch 'The View', eat chocolate covered pretzels and get under the covers of my bed and no one, not even the cats, will make me feel guilty about it.

I haven't decided if I'll go to computer class or not today. I'm legitimately ill, and I forced myself to go the last two days and learned very little new information, so I might stay in today, curl up with self-pity and a puffy pillow. I like the class, actually, particularly since it's all about moving along, learning, and there is very little socializing. The teacher is a small, greasy, spectacled fellow who clearly likes his technology, but he is always pleasant, and he tends to let me do my own thing since I'm a little further ahead of everyone else. He has said a few times that he hopes I'm not becoming bored with him, since I know most of what he's taught so far, but I know that soon we'll be on to topics I know nothing about, and for now I feel like the class star which is always nice. Like last week, during a speed test for typing, I tap, tap, tapped away until I noticed my seventy-something desk neighbour staring at me. How many words per minute? he asked gruffly. Oh, uh, sixty-five, I said after looking at my score, 'you? He looked at his screen and then looked back at me Seven. I smiled and nodded before telling him that practice makes perfect. He just smiled and went back to his tapping. I'm just happy to be in a classroom again, having been away from it for so long.

There are a couple people who are younger than I am in the class, but most are older. One woman, who sits at the desk across from me, is the most insufferable, annoying, idiotic person I've seen in some time. She arrives every day with a coffee, a bottle of frozen water, a bag of candies, a couple cookies and a vast collection of hand creams and lipsticks which she pulls out of her purse and applies when the teacher isn't looking. She is loud, emits curse words every time she punches the wrong key, and is that person in class who is always asking for help. She doesn't listen to him, and then she wonders why she doesn't know what she's doing. She cracks her gum, mutters about needing a cigarette, and about thirty minutes into class, she disappears for a smoke break which takes about ten minutes, so that when she returns she's missed all of the information which was taught in that time, and proceeds to call out to the teacher 'I don't understand. This stupid computer won't let me do that. This doesn't make any sense!'. The day before yesterday, she was fiddling with her hand cream, lubing her fingers, and then she disappeared for a cigarette. When she returned, she heaved a heavy sigh before plunking into her chair, got all ready to focus on her screen when she suddenly realized she'd lost her ring. She made a huge production out of it, got on her hands and knees to search for it, shrieking about the fact that it had diamonds and sapphires, before going back into the school's many hallways to retrace her steps. I think that she might have paid attention for about ten minutes that day, out of two hours, and then she left early because she was traumatized by the loss of her ring. I very often want to sock her in the nose. I know she has caught me sneering at her, but she's the kind of woman who doesn't care about that kind of thing. She has decided that the world revolves around her, and my contempt is only jealousy, surely. Though I consider myself to be a mostly kind person, I can't deny fantasizing about her falling down a flight of stairs and breaking both her index fingers.

My friend K. is in Mexico right now, and my other friend, also K. is in Florida. I am jealous of them both, for different reasons. First K. is probably drunk and laughing her ass off as I type. She is with a group of fifteen people, all of them friends of hers and her husband, and I know they are eating at the buffets and drinking at the wet bars and baking in the sun. My other friend, second K., is probably reading a book on the deck of her parent's place, breathing in the air of the Gulf, while her mother dotes on K's children who K. will mostly ignore while visiting. Neither one of them are sick, I imagine, both eating food prepared by other people, napping under a umbrella, wearing straw hats and slapping at flies. They'll both tan, they'll both eat fruit in season. Here I am, old razorblade throat, wearing a camel-coloured turtleneck and a sourpuss, looking at an empty tea cup and wanting mentholyptus lozenges.

I need a glass of wine. I need a bubble bath. I want someone else to do the cooking.